


Teenagers

by mutual_curiosity



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Domestic Fluff, M/M, Sibling Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-01
Updated: 2016-05-01
Packaged: 2018-06-05 15:23:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6710506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mutual_curiosity/pseuds/mutual_curiosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>slight au. Renji and Uta have a love-hate, on-off relationship. Hikari is both amused and bewildered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Teenagers

**Author's Note:**

> a/n: "Slight au" meaning everyone lives and Renji is an involved uncle in the Kirishima family. Thanks to the lovely Cor (coromoor) for being my beta!

"Heard from someone you've been trespassing in the 4th Ward lately." 

Renji stared into his coffee mug, stirring with the spoon mindlessly. Anteiku was relatively busy for a Sunday afternoon. They tried to touch base and meet at least once a week, though Hikari's schedule was always hectic. Life with a family made free time a true luxury.

"I trust that you're staying out of trouble." 

Renji couldn't help it, but his mouth formed into a half-smirk, half-smile at her comment. His sister huffed and then raised her head to look at the ceiling in contemplation.

"I suppose I didn't set a good example, did I?"

"You were a good sister. You _are_ a good sister." Renji insisted, frowning a little. He didn't like anyone criticizing her, even herself.

"So..." She began, lifting her mug for another sip. "Who's this Uta character I've been hearing about?"

"No one." His answer was a little too quick, but nonetheless, his expression remained nonplussed.

"Sure," she said, elongating the entire word from the percussive ' _sh'_  to the vowel and roll of the ' _r._ ' There was always smile playing at the corner of her lips, but it was especially mischievous at that moment.

"You mean 'No Face.'" She set her mug down and away from her.

Renji looked at her, and though his face remained blank, Hikari seemed to have extrapolated _something_ out of the moment their eyes met.

"What's he like?" She leaned in closer, excitement radiating from her whole being. Her sudden, intense reaction had Renji feeling obligated to answer.

"Really annoying."

"Yeah? Tell me more." Hikari held up her head with the palms of her hands.

"There's nothing else." Renji turned his head to look out the window. Upon sensing an end to the amount of information she could get out of him, Hikari loosened her shoulders and gave him a more innocent smile.

"Whatever you say little brother."

* * *

Hikari was usually late. Whether it was minutes or hours varied from week to week. But she would show eventually, and Renji didn't seem to mind. He was either resigned to it, or he was finally calming down from all the teenage hormones and rage. 

She saw Renji by the window of Anteiku as she approached, and upon entering, went over to him before ordering. She set the small, portable cooler on the floor and nudged it over to him with her foot.

Renji grumbled his thanks, and then said, "I can get food on my own."

"I know, but this is what big sisters do." Her hand shot out to pinch his cheek before he swatted it away. "They feed and spoil their baby brothers."

Renji made a face at the word 'baby,' but said nothing. Maybe he was calming down after all. The thought made Hikari's heart swell. He was growing up just fine. The times when he would freak out when she showed him a bug or yell and pout when she teased him didn’t seem that far away. 

Hikari sprang up and left Renji to order coffee. She chatted for a minute with her friend, Irimi who was working as barista that day. When she glanced back, she saw Ren peek into the cooler, which made her smile.

"Hey, I dropped by your place the other day and you weren't there," Hikari said, after she had settled back into her seat.

"Oh.. Sorry, I forgot to tell you." He was painfully obvious in his endeavors to shrug it off, but Hikari wasn’t about to let the opportunity slip.

"Since when did you relocate to the 4th Ward?"

"Not long ago." Renji tilted his head up to acknowledge Irimi who had come by to refill his mug. When he looked back to her, she was probably wearing a shit-eating grin at that point, but none of it mattered. Whether or not Renji chose to divulge any details about his relationship or not, she would know. It was her duty to be nosy.

"What?"

"Nothing, Renji..." She gave another knowing smile and then glanced down at her coffee. He narrowed his eyes a little, and she shrugged, letting his wariness and suspicious looks roll off her back.

"I said, don't worry about it Ren." 

* * *

Hikari had just put her youngest to bed when she heard the glass sliding door to their back porch shut. She ventured to the kitchen to see her brother, crouched on the floor in the dark, petting their cat.

"Okay, I love you Renji...but why are you invading my home?" She turned on the main light, and Renji squinted from the sudden attack on his retinas.

"Did you guys have a fight or something?"

Renji didn't turn to look at her, but Hikari saw him scrunch his face as if recalling a distasteful memory.

"All right, all right. I won't ask. But you're in charge of washing your own dishes! You make a mess, you clean it up."

Renji rose to face her and nodded obediently. Hikari turned to leave, but upon remembering something important, spun around, an authoritative finger poised in the air.

"And if it gets magically cleaned up, that's Arata. So please don't make my husband clean after you. I raised you better than that."

* * *

Renji had left after a couple weeks, just when her children had gotten used to having him around the house. Hikari was admittedly loathe to let him go, but happy for the reconciliation between her brother and his significant other.

Daily life had returned to whatever semblance of normalcy they had before. That was, until a month later when she again found an unexpected guest at her back porch.

Hikari was cleaning up after dinner, washing dishes and storing leftovers when she saw something in her peripheral vision. She went to the porch sliding door and almost had an aneurysm when she saw a dark figure standing right in front of her on the other side.

The figure waved a friendly hand and when Hikari turned on the porch light, she saw a scrawny teen with dyed blond hair. Immediately making the connection, she unlocked the door and slid it open.

“Thanks. You’re Raven-kun’s sister, right?”

“Uh, yeah... You must be Uta.”

His only response to that was a toothy grin.

* * *

When Hikari met her brother that Sunday, she wasted no time with games or pleasantries. She was housing a juvenile delinquent with dyed hair and piercings. The neighbors were beginning to ask questions, as they had begun to notice him around the area.

"So do you want to explain why your boyfriend is at my house?"

"He's what-" and then "He's not my-"

"He just showed up in the middle of the night. I was about to nark him, but then he told me who he was. Did you kick him out or something?" Hikari tried to convey her concern. She wasn’t scolding him per se, but she wasn’t happy with the situation for her, or for her brother. Despite her attempts to catch his gaze, he avoided eye contact completely.

"I can't believe you kicked him out of his own ward... Wow."

She then burst out into laughter, the loud, deep, abdomen-clutching kind. After the fit had passed, she noticed Renji’s solemn face.

He was still looking at the table, looking less ashamed and more troubled. Finally when he looked up, he said, "How do you live with Arata without wanting to kill him?"

"Oh, boy," she said, straightening in her chair and taking a deep breath. "The reality is that I do want to kill him sometimes."

She smiled at Renji's surprise and continued, "It's difficult living with someone. You get used to it over time." Renji nodded, and Hikari had a feeling that he was taking mental notes.

"And if you don't, don't worry about it. It's okay not to be together all the time. If you guys work better apart, then that's fine, too," she added hastily. Hopefully she covered all her bases. Before Arata and a steady lifestyle, that kind of casual relationship was her default. No unnecessary complications, a functional relationship to satisfy both parties' needs. 

Renji turned to look into the distance, seeming to mull over this new concept.

* * *

Hikari supposed that was what having in-laws was like. After the first incident, she felt like she had unwittingly adopted Uta as a brother. He would swing by the house pretty much whenever he wanted, stopping to chat about Renji among other news in the ghoul world.

Arata was putting the kids to bed for a nap, and for a rare moment she was relaxing in the dining room. She just let Uta unlock and open the back door. It must've said something about her judgment of her brother's choice in partners. Uta knew that she saved snacks of eyes or genitals for when he visited, and went to the refrigerator for something to munch on.

Hikari didn't acknowledge him until he came over to her, settling in the seat beside her. Her attention was drawn to a small piece of paper with a neatly penned design that he slid over to her.

"Ooh, is that Latin? It'll look great as a tattoo." She held up the paper up to the light so she  could get a better look.

"Sharp eye."

"Arata likes to watch historical documentaries." She shrugged. "What does it mean?"

"I can live neither with you, nor without you." At Uta's words, Hikari smiled fondly at the sketch.

"I feel like Ren needs this more than you," she teased. She set the sketch back on the table, retrieved her glass of wine, and leaned back in her seat. "He may be quiet, but I know you're more go-with-the-flow."

"It is a reminder for Ren-kun. He'll get to see it every time he sees me."

"Ahh," Hikari nodded and then for emphasis, raised her eyebrows suggestively.

"That's the idea~" Uta said, happily folding the paper and pocketing it again. Then he frowned slightly.

"Ren-kun has been shutting me out lately. And it's lasted longer than his 'moods' usually do." Uta seemed contemplative. "I mean, he hasn't disappeared or ignored me, but we just sit in silence most of the time."

"If you ever want to hear Ren talk more, just get him drunk," she said, swirling the wine in her glass a little. Hikari recalled the first time he had gotten drunk, courtesy of one of her poorer life decisions as a big sister.

"I always try, but he never wants to drink!" Uta cocked his head, exasperation clear even through his mostly neutral expression.

"That's probably because he gets drunk pretty quickly. And he knows he gets really talkative, which will mean regrets in the morning." She finished off the rest of her drink.

Giving advice to teenagers was starting making her feel old. And though she missed her wild days, it was quite a natural progression to settle down. Besides, lately she found it more entertaining to watch than do.

"So that's why he's such a prude with blood wine." Uta started to head out, half-turning to say goodbye to his host.

"Yup, good luck!" Hikari waved him off with her free hand.

* * *

"You're scheming with him," Renji accused, as soon as Hikari sat in the chair across from him. She was taken aback for half a second before she tried (and failed) to hold in her guilty smile.

"Hey, you instigated this whole thing." Hikari put up her hands in mock-defensiveness. "If you hadn't kicked him out of this own place, he wouldn't have come to my home."

Renji seemed like he was about to say something, but then realized he had no solid defense. He hadn't thought Uta knew where she lived, but nonetheless had forced him to go somewhere else.

"Besides, it's good to get know and bond with the in-laws." Renji groaned at that. Hikari's grin only widened.

"Did you guys have a good heart-to-heart?" When her brother remained silent, she merely continued without him, unperturbed. "Communication is rather important in a relationship."

"Did I tell you about how Arata proposed?" Renji shook his head. "He asked me to eat miso soup and since I obviously couldn't eat it, I didn't understand that he was proposing. And that's, I don't know, kind of an important decision where both parties involved need to be on the same page."

Renji shook his head again, but in disbelief. Hikari thought he might have been hiding a grin. She couldn't blame him, a lot of the stories she had about Arata were hilarious for those who weren't there. She was sure they would be good anecdotes to have on hand if she ever needed to give her kids second-hand embarrassment. 

"Oh my _god_..." Renji froze and shock slowly spread across his face as he followed where her eyes had landed. "Ren, _is that a hickey_?"

It had been years since she saw her little brother turn entirely beet red. His hand shot up to cover the mark and adjust his shirt, and he was staring at the floor. Hikari did her best to muffle her laughter, but at that moment it was truly an endeavor.

"Well, I hope you at least did some talking before..."

Renji glared weakly at her.

* * *

The first time Renji didn't show up at Anteiku, Hikari's mind had supplied a dozen plausible reasons for absence.

The second time, Hikari was calling up old friends and contacts, desperate for any morsel of information. What she learned made her heart drop into her stomach. There had been a sudden spike in unauthorized fighting and skirmishes in the 4th Ward.

Not only that, but Renji and Uta were probably the ones intervening, right in the middle of it all. Renji had been so diligent about making time for her that she had forgotten what life was like before she had starting living among humans.

Hikari trusted Renji to look after himself, but the ghoul world could be a cruel and unforgiving place.

* * *

It was Touka's fifth birthday. 

She had brought treats to preschool and had a small party with her friends at the house. Kids were an incredibly messy bunch. Hikari and Arata spent a few hours straightening up and cleaning post-party. Once everything was back in its rightful place and every surface was wiped down, they gathered for a more private party.

For once, Arata had used his cooking skills to feed his family. A big, fresh, hot pie for the birthday girl. The aroma of cooked meat filled the kitchen and dining room. As they were setting the table, the back door slid open.

"Uncle Ren!" Touka dropped the silverware on the table and rushed to Renji, jumping into his arms. Luckily, Uta who was at his side, was holding both of their gifts.

"Ah, you're getting so heavy, so old," Renji teased. He wobbled while holding onto Touka pretending her weight was too much for him. She laughed and whacked him playfully.

"I'm not old! You're old! I'm a big girl." Touka said, full of giggles.

"Do you remember me?" Uta said, when Renji had swung her so that she was facing him. Touka made a face and stuck her tongue out at him.

"You're that weird guy who comes over," she sassed. Renji let out an amused scoff, but Uta only wore a thoughtful expression.

"I feel honored to be remembered. It's progress." Uta gave a slight shrug and went to put the presents out of the way.

Renji set Touka back on her feet and she immediately ran over to where her little brother was hiding behind their father's legs. Hikari went to greet her brother and gave him an embarrassingly tight hug.

"I'm so glad you could make it," she said. Hikari couldn't remember when he got so tall. The height difference between them was slowly becoming a thing she couldn't amend with heels.

"Yeah, well, what else would I be doing?"

"I don't know, important 4th Ward administrative tasks?" Renji snorted and eventually gave in, hugging back when there was no inclination that she would release him.

"And you brought Uta. I feel like a whole, _normal_ family." She felt Renji let out another snort of laughter, probably at her choice of words, but she didn't care. In that moment, everything was perfect.


End file.
